I think I've figured out that whole "lost time" thing that people claim to experience when they're abducted by UFOs. I'm willing to bet almost half of those people are just zoning out in lines at WalMart. The other half are actually being abducted by aliens and anally probed. Possibly.

I did go to the WalMart tonite, and I swear I lost 3 hours sitting in line. All I wanted was a couple cases of Pepsi (for the morning commute) and a mirror (for my cube at work).

I ended up in a line with 2 people in front of me. This was, of course, the shortest line as far as I was able to figure out by walking up and down the entire length of the checkout area. The people in the very front of the line were apparently furnishing their entire house. Aside from purchasing everything needed to decorate their home, eat for a month, and repair their car, they had also managed to fit it all in one cart.

Really... it was like watching one of those Russian doll things. They'd open a rubbermaid storage thing, and about 432 other items would come tumbling out.

The people in front of me were evil. That's because the two women actually had to make their purchases separately, slowing down the woman manning (womanning?) the register to hitherto unexplored depths of slowness. I checked to make sure superman wasn't flying in really fast circles around the WalMart, but as far as I can tell, the slowness was entirely a localized effect in Aisle 4.

Then ya had the old people behind me... who spent the entire 25 minutes worried because they found a card on the floor. Someone dropped their card. Someone might die without the goodwill that the "Get Well Soon" card on the floor might have brought.

And finally, to the couple who spent 10 minutes pacing up and down the aisle corral complaining, I have only this to say. ¡No hay linea mas corta, so freakin deal, comprende!